Actor · San Francisco · Non-Union

Om Raina

Om Raina, headshot
i. SF · 35mm · 2025
A second-year Meisner student in San Francisco. Studying the work of being honest, alive, and specific in imaginary circumstances.
“The pleasure of acting is to be lost and found in the same breath.”
Reel · 2026
Height6′0″
Weight160lb
HairBlack
EyesBrown
BasedSF · Bay
StatusNon-Union
01 · Statement

On the work, and the life beneath it.

I came to acting the way most things worth doing arrive, slowly, then all at once. I'd been studying philosophy at Berkeley, reading the Upanishads in the morning and Dostoevsky at night, trying to understand what it is to be a person who is actually here. Acting, when I found it, felt like the same question asked with the body instead of the page.

My training is in Meisner, a craft built on listening, on truthful response, on what happens between people when nothing is being performed. Under Jim Jarrett in San Francisco, I'm learning to put down the cleverness and pick up the simpler, harder thing: be present, behave truthfully, let the moment land.

Outside the studio I box four mornings a week, run long distances, sit in pranayama, and read the way some people pray. I grew up in a family of builders (real estate, infrastructure), so I'm comfortable with long projects, with showing up before anyone is watching. I think of acting that way: a practice, not a performance.

What I want to make is work that feels like it costs something. Stillness that isn't empty. Volume that isn't loud. I'm building toward characters who carry contradictions: devotion and doubt, tenderness and force, without resolving them too quickly.

02 · Practice & Training

An apprenticeship in attention.

2024 – Present · San Francisco

Meisner Technique Studio

Jim Jarrett, Master Teacher, direct lineage from Sanford Meisner

A 1.5-year conservatory in the Meisner tradition. Currently in second-year impediment and scene work, the place where the technique begins to disappear and the actor begins to appear.

  • Repetition
  • Activities
  • Independent Activities
  • Emotional Preparation
  • The Moment Before
  • Private Moment
  • Impediments
  • Spoon River Anthology
Ongoing · Independent

Craft study, by hand

Stanislavski · Meisner · Adler · Strasberg · Practical Aesthetics

The foundational texts, read and re-read with a pen in hand. Beside that, an ongoing self-education in dramatic literature, classical text, and the history of film, not as homework, but as the long conversation the craft is part of.

  • Stanislavski · An Actor Prepares
  • Meisner · On Acting
  • Adler · The Art of Acting
  • Strasberg · A Dream of Passion
  • Bruder / Cohn · Practical Aesthetics
  • Hagen · Respect for Acting
  • Chekhov · To the Actor
  • Brook · The Empty Space
Education

B.A. Economics & Philosophy
University of California, Berkeley · 2022 – 2026

Plate iii.

Be private in public. Behave truthfully under imaginary circumstances.

after Sanford Meisner
03 · Faculties

On listening, and being moved by what you hear.

i. Movement & Combat F·01
BoxingIntermediate · 2+ yrs · 4×/wk
Long-distance runningTrained
Functional strengthDaily
Yoga & mobilityDaily
Stage combatOpen to train
ii. Voice & Dialect F·02
General AmericanNative
Indian (North Indian / Punjabi-inflected)Native lineage
Southern AmericanProficient
AustralianProficient
English (RP)Proficient
LanguagesEnglish (native) · Punjabi (conv.)
iii. Music & Rhythm F·03
DrumsBeginner
Ear for tempo / cueStrong
Sight-singingOpen to train
iv. Interior Life F·04
Pranayama & meditationDaily · 3+ yrs
Vedantic & Hindu philosophyAdvanced self-study
Hermetic & Kabbalistic traditionsReader
Classical text & dramatic litOngoing
v. Lived Experience F·05
Operator / entrepreneurReal estate · infrastructure
International travelExtensive
On-camera comfortHigh
vi. Practical F·06
U.S. driver's licenseValid
Bay Area local hireYes
Travel for workOpen
04 · Reading Room

The conversation the work is part of.

The room I work from isn't only the studio. It's also a long shelf of books: the ones I keep returning to, the ones that taught me what a sentence can do, and what a silence can.

These aren't credits. They're company.

xvii Volumes · standing on the shelf
i. The Craft 06
01 Sanford Meisner On Acting Meisner
02 An Actor Prepares Stanislavski
03 The Art of Acting Adler
04 A Dream of Passion Strasberg
05 A Practical Handbook for the Actor Bruder et al.
06 The Empty Space Brook
ii. The Philosophers 06
07 The Upanishads Tr. Easwaran
08 The Bhagavad Gītā Tr. Mascaró
09 The Republic Plato
10 Critique of Pure Reason Kant
11 Ethics Spinoza
12 Theological‑Political Treatise Spinoza
iii. The Living 05
13 The Kybalion Three Initiates
14 The Game of Life & How to Play It Scovel Shinn
15 As a Man Thinketh James Allen
16 Way of the Peaceful Warrior Millman
17 Letters to a Young Poet Rilke
05 · Get in touch

Let's work.

Open to representation, auditions, student & indie features, scene partners, and good coffee.

Replies route to Om directly.
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